


Idiosyncratic Reaction

by sahiya



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Amnesia, Christmas, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 16:50:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Craig suddenly has bigger problems than whether Sofie's niece wants the Barbie Glam Convertible or the Barbie Glam Corvette.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Idiosyncratic Reaction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [significantowl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/significantowl/gifts).



> Happy Holidays, Significant Owl!

The Saturday before Christmas was an absolutely mad time to be out shopping, which of course was why Sofie insisted on it. She'd split the list of things they needed to get in half and sent him off with one and taken herself and Alfie off with the other.

An hour later found Craig standing in the middle of a violently pink aisle in the toy shop, on his mobile with Sofie. "Is it the Barbie Glam Corvette or the Barbie Glam Convertible your niece wants?"

"There are two Barbie Glam cars?"

"Yes, and one of them is a Corvette and one is a convertible. Though the Corvette is also a convertible. Which one do I get?"

"I have no idea, all my sister said was 'pink Barbie Glam car.'"

"Well, I don't want us to get the wrong one!"

Sofie sighed. "Just buy the cheaper one and get a gift receipt. My sister can always return it later if it's not what Lindsey wants."

This was why Sofie was in charge of just about everything. "Brilliant plan. Thanks." Craig hung up, grabbed the Glam Convertible off the shelf, turned around - and found himself face to face with the Doctor.

Craig blinked hard twice. He really hadn't thought they'd see him again after last time, not with the way the Doctor had been talking. "Doctor?" he said.

"Doctor?" the Doctor replied. "Where? Wait - me? Am I a doctor?"

"Are you a doctor?" Craig replied in bewilderment. "I don't know, you're _the_ Doctor. Aren't you?"

"Don't really know just now. Actually," the Doctor said, tapping Craig on the chest, "do you work here? Could you help me? I'm a bit lost, I'm afraid."

"Lost?"

"Yes, don't know where I am. Or who I am, come to think of it. Should I be more alarmed? I feel I should be more alarmed."

"Don't be more alarmed," Craig said quickly. "You're in Colchester, England. Do you remember England?"

"Of course I remember England!" the Doctor said defensively. "Rains all the time, lots of sheep."

"Yes, exactly. Now, hang on just a tick, all right? Don't. Move."

Keeping his eyes trained on the Doctor, Craig backed away a few feet, dug his mobile out of his pocket, and called Sofie. "Sof -"

"Craig, I told you, just buy the cheaper one."

"I did!" Craig said. "I got the convertible - but that's not the point. Sof, the Doctor, he's here!"

"The Doctor's here? Oh God, does this mean the world is going to end? Mum and Dad are coming Thursday, Christmas Eve is Saturday, I've already done most of the shopping, the world can't end now!"

"I don't know if the means the world is going to end, but I really hope not, because he doesn't seem to remember who he is."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I don't know, it's weird. Oh God, I think he's about to wander off. Look, are you almost done? Maybe if we take him home, he'll remember something from last time."

"Yes, I'm done. I'll meet you outside the TK Maxx, all right? And don't forget the convertible!"

Craig hung up. Then he tucked the Glam Convertible under one arm and chased after the Doctor, who'd wandered off toward the remote control toys. "Come on, Doctor," he said, "we have to meet Sofie. Do you remember Sofie? She's my - well, not my wife, we're not married. My partner."

"Yes, of course," the Doctor muttered, poking at a car shaped like a bug. "Your partner Sofie."

"So you remember her?"

"No, not at all. Why is this car shaped like a bug?"

Craig shrugged, helplessly. "I dunno. Because that makes it cool? Come on, Doctor, the queues are going to be awful, and I have to buy a Glam Convertible."

The queues were awful, and the Doctor wouldn't stop talking. Craig responded to him with one half of his brain, while the other half was busy trying to figure out what to do about a Doctor who couldn't remember who he was. Sofie was right, if the Doctor was here, that meant there was a good chance the world was in serious trouble, and if he couldn't even remember why he was here, then the bad guys - whoever they were - were already halfway to winning.

"What makes it a glam convertible?" the Doctor asked, holding the box up at eye level to inspect it.

"I dunno," Craig said. "Maybe because it's pink."

"But that makes it a pink convertible, not a glam convertible."

"True enough," Craig said, and gratefully plunked down thirty quid for the glam convertible. Most of the time he'd be thinking about how many of Alfie's nappies that could buy, but today he was just glad to get the hell out of the shop without being kidnapped by Cybermen.

Sofie and Alfie were waiting for them, as promised, outside the TK Maxx. "Hullo, you must be Sofie!" the Doctor said, sticking his hand out for her to shake. "I don't know who I am, but your not-husband seems to have a good idea. And hullo, who are you?" he added to Alfie, who burbled back at him happily.

"This is Alfie," Sofia said, exchanging a worried look with Craig. "You've met him before, too."

"Did I?" the Doctor asked, distractedly.

"Yeah, Doctor, you did. When the Cybermen invaded," Craig said pointedly. "Do you remember the Cybermen?"

"Mmm, yes, Cybermen. Silvery chaps, no sense of humor."

"So you do remember it."

"Nope, not a bit."

Craig sighed. "Well, let's get you home. Maybe something there will jog your memory."

"It's possible you've had a thump on the head," Sofie said, as they fought their way upstream toward the exit to the shopping center. "Sometimes that can cause temporary amnesia. Do you have a headache?"

"No headache," the Doctor said. "Ooh, lights. Is it Christmas?"

"A week from tomorrow," Sofie said.

"Ooh, brilliant! I love Christmas - at least I think I do. Tinsel!" the Doctor exclaimed, and veered off to the right to inspect one of the fake Christmas trees ringing the Santa display.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Sofie asked, as they paused to wait for him.

"That we can get him to baby-sit Alfie tonight?" Craig replied hopefully.

"No," she said with a sharp glance in his direction. "Really, Craig, you'd let an amnesiac alien watch our baby?" Craig shrugged. "No, I was was thinking that he can't still be around when my parents come. You know my mother, she'd find it -"

"Unseemly," Craig finished with a grimace. Sofie's mother found _everything_ "unseemly." Including Craig. "Right. Well, maybe he'll remember on his own. That happens sometimes with amnesia, right? In films, people can't remember and then they see their favorite stuffed toy from childhood and BOOM! They remember."

"Maybe," Sofie said, sounding dubious. "Except the only stuffed toys we have lying around are Alfie's. Well, come on," she sighed, "let's collect him before he gets arrested."

The Doctor still hadn't remembered who he was by the time they got back to the house. He chatted indiscriminately with Sofie, Craig, and Alfie as he helped them unload the shopping, and then he took Alfie upstairs to settle him for a nap. Sofie and Craig stood in the kitchen, staring at the baby monitor and listening to the Doctor tell Alfie the story of Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday. Alfie seemed to enjoy it thoroughly, if enjoyment could be measured in how fast he fell asleep.

"You know," the Doctor said, as he came downstairs, “I'm starting to think I'm not quite normal for a human."

"That's because you're not a human," Sofie said. "You're an alien."

"I see," the Doctor said. "That does explain a lot."

"Look," Craig said, "there was this thing you did before where you gave me your memories. Maybe I could do it again, only in reverse."

"No, that'd never work, you haven't any active psychic ability at all," the Doctor said. "You can receive memories, not send them, and how did I know that?"

"You seem to have the same knowledge you always did, you just don't remember anything about who you are," Sofie said. "What would cause that?"

"Could be any number of things," the Doctor said, "a brain injury, some sort of psychic accident, drugs - "

"DOCTOR!" a woman's voice shouted from the back garden.

Craig just about leapt out of his skin. Sofie grabbed a spatula and brandished it, while the Doctor reached into his pocket for his sonic thingamagig and looked very disconcerted to find it missing, though Craig suspected he didn't even know what he was looking for.

"DOCTOR!" the woman shouted again, and this time she pounded on the door as well. "Doctor, are you in there?" She sounded somewhere between irate and frantic, a tenor Craig had become well-acquainted with since he and Sofie'd had Alfie.

The Doctor frowned. "I know that voice."

"Should I let her in?" Sofie asked. "She's going to wake up Alfie if she keeps shouting.”

"DOCTOR!"

"I'm letting her in," Sofie said decisively, and opened the door.

"Hello," said the woman on the other side. She had wild, untamed hair and a glint in her eye that made Craig want to duck and cover. "Sorry to barge in. I'm Dr. River Song. Is the Doctor here?"

"River!" the Doctor said. "I know you. You're _River_!"

"Yes, sweetie," said Dr. Song, visibly relieved. "I am. And you're wandering around high on painkillers. I'm sorry," she added to Sofie and Craig, "next time I'll wait to fix his broken leg until _after_ I have a shower."

"High? I'm not high," the Doctor said. "I don't feel high. I just can't remember anything."

"Idiosyncratic reaction," Dr. Song said, still mostly to Sofie and Craig. "Come on," she told the Doctor, "let's get you back to the TARDIS where you can sleep it off."

"The TARDIS. I remember her. Blue and bigger on the inside!"

"That's the one, dear. Say good-bye to your new friends."

"Good-bye, new friends! Only they're not new friends, they're old friends. Good old Craig and Sofie - and Alfie! Good-bye!"

"Thanks for looking after him," Dr. Song said, and herded the Doctor out the door. A few moments later, Craig heard a sound he'd only heard twice in his life but would never forget. He grabbed Sofie's hand and dragged her to the window, just in time to see the Doctor's ship vanish from their back garden.

"Well," Sofie said. "Well, that was . . . something else."

"Yeah," Craig said, smiling fondly. "That's the Doctor all right. Something else."

 _Fin._


End file.
